I want to create a Memtest disk to test my memory. Could someone walk me through the process of creating such a disk-CD-DVD. Also could you also include your recommendation of the software I should download to create the disk.

Last edited by RAMBO on Wed Aug 10, 2011 10:36 pm, edited 1 time in total.

A fact is a simple statement that everyone believes. It is innocent, unless found guilty. A hypothesis is a novel suggestion that no one wants to believe. It is guilty, until found effective.Edward Teller

How do I burn memtest as an ISO? I unzipped memtest and got mt420, a zip file, when I opened mt420 with winzip it shows boot CAT, MEMTEST.IMG and a read me file. Do I want to just burn mt420 to the disk or do I have to copy the files and then burn them to disk? I have downloaded imageburn but what do I do now? If you could lay out the steps in noob form that would be very helpful, thank you.

I burned mt420 to a cd using imageburn, it says it is bootable, this is it right?

A little background on CD-ROMs might help. CDs follow a particular format, where certain areas are reserved for boot code, other areas for a table of contents, and the rest for data blocks. When you burn an ordinary data CD-ROM, you give the burner software a list of files, and the software constructs all of that for you. In other words, it builds an image of the CD that has a table of contents that says that a file named XYZ exists on blocks n-m, file ABC uses another bunch of blocks, etc. Then that image is burned to the CD. Figuring out what goes where on the disk is called 'mastering'.

A disk image is a block-by-block copy of a disk, already mastered for you. The filesystem used for data CD_ROMs is defined by a standard named ISO-9660, so files containing CD images are often given an extension of ISO. Audio CDs use a different layout, and DVDs yet another. For that reason, some prefer the more generic extension IMG, because you can make an image of a disk no matter what the filesystem is. All ISO files are image files.

You need to tell the burning software that you are burning an image, not mastering a data disk. If you don't, it will master a new image that contains the other image as a data file, and it won't be bootable. That's why ImgBurn was suggested; it's designed to burn images. The burner software that came with your computer may or may not support easily burning images. The ability is there; copying a disk is making an image, but the user interface may not let you specify a file instead of a drive as the source or destination.

TL;DR version: Burning a pre-mastered image is not the same as burning a data disk.

How do I burn memtest as an ISO? I unzipped memtest and got mt420, a zip file, when I opened mt420 with winzip it shows boot CAT, MEMTEST.IMG and a read me file. Do I want to just burn mt420 to the disk or do I have to copy the files and then burn them to disk? I have downloaded imageburn but what do I do now? If you could lay out the steps in noob form that would be very helpful, thank you.

I burned mt420 to a cd using imageburn, it says it is bootable, this is it right?